Strictly Business
by Rosefeather
Summary: A few rebellious Death Eaters have emerged to take another crack at two of the Saviours of the Wizarding World, but you won't believe who else they tried to take out. AU, Post War, Title Changed, Not a love story! Sorry!


Strictly Business: A Love Story

Draco Malfoy stared at the woman before him, hearing her words, but not understanding in the least what was happening.

"Malfoy, I just told you! They're gone! I've looked everywhere for him, and I didn't find him, then I heard about your mother, surely someone told you- are you paying attention?"

"Vaguely." Draco muttered, running his hand through his hair. "I'm trying to think, Granger."

Hermione Granger hissed in annoyance. "I already told you what the problem is, you prat. Ron vanished two days ago, and your mother disappeared this morning. Harry is in Hawaii with Ginny, but he might not be here in time! Besides, Harry might not handle the situation very well."

"And by that you mean that Potter tends to act before trying to put his head to any use."

Hermione sighed. "And since this concerns you as well, I figured you could help me. It would benefit us both."

"Why… what happened? Do you know anything else, Granger?"

"Not really. We suspect its Death Eaters, who survived the final battle but weren't captured."

Draco stood, glaring at the witch across from him. Curse the Death Eaters, curse Granger, and curse the Weasel. Draco had the strange urge to rip his hair out, but decided against it. As much as he hated the very idea, Draco knew he would help Granger if his mother was captured. Had it been his father, Draco would have had no problems letting Lucius rot and die wherever he was. Although, that did raise another problem.

"I'm assuming," Draco sighed, "That we also don't know where they are."

"I was hoping you might have an idea." Hermione said, folding her arms in front of her.

"Thought wrong then, Granger. Just because I was a Death Eater doesn't mean I know every hideout the Dark Lord and his followers had." Draco said in irritation, glowering at Hermione as though this were all her fault.

"This was a waste of time." Hermione huffed, turning to leave.

"Granger," Draco said dully, "I would be willing to help."  
>Hermione turned slowly to face him, looking confused.<p>

Draco made a face, but said, "My mother doesn't deserve to be kidnapped. I'll help you rescue them both."

"We have a deal?"

"I… suppose."

… … …

"If you were a Death Eater who had just kidnapped Ron and Narcissa, where would you hide them?" Hermione said, looking frazzled. It was late, and Draco and Hermione were in Hermione's flat.

Draco heaved a heavy sigh, "I already told you, I don't know. I'd hide them in seclusion, but if what you told me is right, these Death Eaters have gone insane or something."

Hermione stared at her coffee table. Books lay splayed about on top of it. "So, seclusion would be the wilderness, somewhere, right?" Hermione asked.

Draco looked her as if she were crazy and said, "No, Granger, seclusion is in the middle of London! Of course it's out in the wilderness. Seclusion means alone, away from people and places."

"Tomorrow, meet me at The Leaky Cauldron at eight a.m." Hermione said, eyes gleaming.

"Why?" Draco asked tiredly.

"Because we have to start somewhere!" Hermione said exasperated. "If we suspect Ron and Narcissa are trapped out in seclusion, we have to go search."

"But there's only the two of us! We'll barely cover any ground looking, it'll take us forever."

"Oh, poor little ferret doesn't want to ruin his good looks trotting through the woods?"

"Oh, what a surprise, Granger, off to rescue that oaf you call a friend. He's not worth rescuing."

"Who are you to say whose life matters more than another's? Was it too much for me to hope for, that you'd gain some maturity after the war?"

"Ouch Granger, that hurts my good looks. I don't have to help you, Granger!"

"Neither of us can find them alone, and you know it. I think Ron and Narcissa are in the Mera forest. It's a tiny little forest, and hardly knows of it, or where it is, or even that it exists at all."

"I could find them alone."

"Malfoy, get out of my house, meet me tomorrow, and behave yourself."

"Only if you're nice to me!"

"Fine, shake on it."

"Repulsive!"

"Do it!"

"Fine."

"See you tomorrow?"

"We'll see."

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

"This is ridiculous." Draco said, standing next to Hermione. They were standing before a line of trees that stretched beyond them for a few miles, and then you'd find a huge canyon, which Hermione told Draco dropped more than a thousand feet.

"This is only ridiculous to you." Hermione huffed impatiently. "You don't trust me, do you?"

Draco smirked. "Took you long enough to figure that out, didn't it, Granger."

"Stay focused Malfoy, or so help me, I will throw you down the canyon."

"Fine, fine, I promised to be a good boy, I suppose. Where shall we start?"

"I was thinking of walking down the trail for a while, see if we could spot any signs that the Death Eaters had been around. Footprints, oddly broken branches, a piece of cloth caught on a branch, or something of that nature."

"How do we know we're not mistaking it for some random hiker?"

Hermione shrugged. "We don't. That's a risk we have to take. However, as these trails aren't hiked often by anyone anymore, there's little risk to finding a muggle hiking."

"But still a risk."

"Geez, Malfoy, are you always so negative?"

"Yeah, basically."

Hermione sighed. "Come on, let's go."

… … …

Minutes turned to hours of trekking through the same dull scenery of tree, after tree, bush after bush.

Malfoy, for his part, had been acting uncharacteristically well behaved, which surprised Hermione, but made her grateful.

"What if this is a trap?" Malfoy suddenly asked, stopping dead.

"What do you mean?" Hermione turned to look at him quizzically.

"I mean, why would someone take my mother and the Weasel? They'd know we'd some after them, maybe that's what they want. Because if you and Weasley are captured, Potter will come to find you both too."

Hermione sighed. "That's another risk. We have to stay on our toes. We can't be caught."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Of course you already thought it could be a trap."

Hermione shrugged. "I know it's very likely to be a trap, but I am not leaving Ron."

"Gryffindors. Utterly loyal." Malfoy said.

"Are you saying you're not loyal to your mother?" Hermione asked, turning and setting off again.

"No," Malfoy countered, "I just have a better sense of when loyalty is pointless."

"That's called self preservation, and there's nothing to love about that."

"If you're a Gryffindor. For a Slytherin, it's different."

"I'm sure."

And finally, the pair pushed through some bushes into a clearing. A tree stood at the other end, and Ron and Narcissa were tied to it. However, Death Eaters filled the entire clearing, wands out and ready.

Hermione and Draco dived into the nearest bushes. Draco let loose a few creative swear words to describe the situation, and Hermione peered between the branches, brow furrowed.

"Well how do we get out of this, brainiac?" Draco muttered to Hermione.

"Just run straight through blaze of glory style?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Some other, more sane options, Granger?"

"Pfft. I don't see you thinking up our plan."

"Yeah, that's because I'm not the genius here."

"Be that as it may be, there is something you can do."

"What?"

"Sneak."

… … …

"Ready?" Hermione asked.

"The plan is pretty simple." Draco replied drily.

Hermione sighed and set off. Her thought process wasn't too difficult. If you can't go through, why not around?

Well, this plan might have worked out perfectly, if some of the Death Eaters hadn't gotten bored.

Sadly, a bored Death Eater tends to lean immediately towards violence, and in this case, that rule of thumb proved itself true again.

"They aren't going to show, come on. Let's start." A Death Eater with a deep voice said to the group.

"Fine by me." Said another.

Hermione and Draco had only made it halfway to their goal at this point, so time was no longer of the essence. Now they had only surprise and extreme stupidity on their side. Strangely, others often consider the stupidity courage.

In any case, Hermione had frozen behind a thick patch of bushes, Draco s

"Who do we start with?" A different Death Eater asked.

"Hard to say. Eh, start with dear, dear, Narcissa."

Draco's fist clenched. "Granger." He hissed.

"Wait, they're untying her!"

"And that's all they'll do."

Before Hermione could stop him, Draco burst from the bushes, Stunning two, then three, and Petrifying a fourth Death Eater before the rest came to their senses. Hermione had time to sigh and roll her eyes before launching herself out of the bushes and joining the fight.

This fight was intense. It was about fifteen Death Eaters versus Hermione and Draco, a rather uneven match. Yet, Draco and Hermione were top fighters and magicians, and Draco for one showed no mercy, a surprise to Hermione, who had thought if it came to a fight Draco would be torn about what side to take.

Hermione for her part had fought plenty of battles before, and did it with the same skill as she always did.

But the most shocking part of this, was Draco and Hermione working as a team. They whirled around each other throwing curses this way and that, blowing apart bushes, and cracking wood off trees, sending Death Eaters flying, but it was a combined effort. A unique and odd dance.

When at last the final Death Eater collapsed (vines and various roots had sprouted out of the ground to entangle him) Hermione turned to Draco. "Good job."

"Yeah." Draco muttered. "Yeah. I never paid attention to you fight before. You did… okay."

Hermione smiled. "You get your mother, I've got Ron."

Hermione hurried over to Ron, and used Diffindo to cut the ropes. Luckily, Ron was conscious and had witnessed the whole fight. He stared at Hermione, aghast for a while before saying, "Why are you fighting with Malfoy?"

"He came with me to help rescue you."

"Rescue?"

"Tied to a tree by Death Eaters? That ring a bell?"

"Oh, right."

"Granger! Do you remember how to get out of this stupid forest?" Draco yelled from behind a bush. He appeared a minute later with his mother, who looked a little worn out, but unhurt and conscious.

Hermione sighed. "We'll figure it out."

"We had better. I hate this forest. It smells like-" Draco sniffed the air, and made a face, "-nature."

Hermione chuckled and asked, "Did you find Ron and your mother's wands?"

"Yeah," Draco said, "Here it is." He handed his mother her wand, and threw Ron his wand.

"And we're off." Hermione said, leading the way back out of the forest.

… … …

At a distance, Hermione Granger-Weasley was just as formal as ever with Draco Malfoy, and so was Draco is reverse.

However, both of them realized that they did not hate each other. They didn't love each other, and they probably didn't like each other much either, but they certainly respected each other.

And for all of the evils of the past that had tainted even a hint of friendship for the pair, respect had to be a better place to end.

Fin.

**A/N: Hello! Yeah, this isn't a romance. Hehe. Fooled around with your head there at the title, didn't I? Hehe! Anyway, this was inspired by the fact that I was awake at midnight one time and the title randomly occurred to me (it's probably my favorite title I've ever created) and I created the story around the title. **

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my little fic, for all of it's faults (and I know there are some). Speaking of which, did I even spell Diffindo right? **

**Well, whatever, I will see you at my next fic, which will hopefully be better than this! **

**Peace, Love, and FanFiction!**

**~ Rosefeather **

**2/16/12**


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